Can I use a place from another book in my own?

Question

I am starting to write a book. I have original characters and plot (it should be original). It is about Greek mythology but Camp Half-Blood is not in it. I want my character to go to Olympus. Can I use the Empire State Building like Rick Riordan?

Answer 1

Locating Olympus, the home of the Greek gods, in the Empire State Building like Riordan does would make it clear to anyone that you have stolen this idea from Percy Jackson.

What that means legally I have no idea, and you might want to ask a lawyer before you get yourself into serious trouble. On the one hand, many on the internet believe that ideas cannot be copyrighted, on the other hand there are many examples for expensive court cases about stolen ideas. So beware.

Answer 2

Mount Olympus is mythological, and thus public domain. You can definitely use that.

For other works still under copyright, technically Names and Titles are not protected under copyright law, but they might be trademarked.

So you can use them without violating copyright... But that is not the final answer!

It doesn't mean you can use "Hogwart's" as the name of any kind of fictional place, or use the word at all in any context presuming it is real. Because "Hogwart's" is trademarked by Warner Brothers, and they will sue you into oblivion.

You could reference it as point of culture, adults and children can certainly talk about Hogwart's, but you cannot name any actual place in your fiction Hogwart's. Trademark law is different than Copyright Law.

In general I would avoid having any fictional place in your work, having the same name as any fictional place in somebody else's work. Publishers are not a fan of this; it feels like stealing from the original writer, and suggesting your work is approved by the original author; that you are using the name specifically to evoke the emotions and mythology about the place created by the original author.

In the case of Olympus, that's fine, it is public domain and evoking related emotions of a mythological home of the gods is fair game.

But you must tread very carefully borrowing any made-up name for anything, character, town, planet, company, etc, from a currently copyrighted, and quite possibly trademarked work of fiction.

As a copyright rule, names and titles are not protected under copyright law.

But do your homework on Trademarks. Here is a place where you can search American trademarks: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/

You will find for common words like "Olympus", it may be trademarked hundreds of times, but for things unrelated to fiction: Trademarks are trade specific!

So "Olympus" trademarked as a kind of electrical cable tiedown product does not apply to your fiction. It only applies so competitors cannot name their own electrical cable tiedowns "Olympus", to impersonate the original company.

In fact, there are hundreds of live trademarks using the word "Olympus", and a handful using just Olympus as a product name.

If you see a live trademark on the name, check the details, if it is owned by a publisher, entertainment company (like a movie studio or game manufacturer) or author, you probably cannot use it.

In general I'd avoid using any place name I knew already appeared in another work of fiction. That seems like "stolen valor" to me, it is unoriginal, trying to use another author's imagination and mastery to sell my own work.

Edit: To address a point by Ben, below; relocating the Olympic Gods to the Empire State Building is a specific plot point of Percy Jackson's work, and as such would be considered copyrightable.

The idea of Olympian Gods existing in modern times is a common trope, and not copyrightable. But if you copy this unique plot point, you are likely to get sued, you will be seen as exploiting Percy Jackson's work.

You could probably relocate Olympus elsewhere, however.

Answer 3

There are ways in which it's OK to use things from other people's books. Take Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, in which the main character, Thursday Next, visits all sorts of fictional places from literature, and meets all sorts of fictional characters (Toad of Toad Hall, Mrs Tiggywinkle, the Cheshire Cat, Mrs Haversham...). But importantly, in that context, the original works are referenced. Fforde's heroine is policing fiction, to make sure the works we think we know aren't changed by malefactors.

If you're making a deliberate allusion, then it probably works. If you just couldn't think of a better route to Olympus, it'd probably look weak. If I remember correctly, the point of placing Olympus above New York in Percy Jackson was because the gods move with the times.

Answer 4

The chance of legal action in the situation you describe may be unlikely, but you should look into the topics of derivative works and fair use if you want to learn more about the possible legal concerns with basing a specific detail of a setting on another author's work.

The following applies in the United States.

If part of your work is clearly derived from a copyrighted work, that can potentially be copyright infringement, even if you don't copy any specific wording

It is often stated that copyright does not protect ideas, just their expression. However, the distinction between "ideas" and "expression" is not always easy to draw. Copyright protects not only the exact wording of a creative work, but also the right "to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work".

What is a derivative work? The definition is

A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.

(17 U.S. Code § 101 - Definitions)

Preparing a derivative work without the permission of the original copyright owner constitutes copyright infringement (with some exceptions, discussed in the next section). This is why it is copyright infringement to make an unauthorized translation of a story, or to prepare a screenplay based on it, even if none of the exact wording of the original source is copied.

Unfortunately, there isn't a simple test to determine whether a work is derivative. That judgement is made on a case-by-case basis.

I think it is possible that by incorporating this specific detail (Mount Olympus being located at the Empire State Building) that appears in Rick Riordan's work (and that was created by Riordan, not taken by him from a preexisting myth) in your own work, you could run the risk of this aspect being judged derivative of Riordan's copyrighted work.

However, unauthorized derivative works are not infringement if they are judged to constitute "fair use"

"Fair use" is an important defense to liability for copyright infringement in the case of unauthorized derivative works. If your work is fair use, it is not infringement, even if it is derivative.

Unfortunately, there is also no simple test to determine whether a derivative work is fair use. This is judged by balancing several factors in an essentially subjective evaluation (including whether the derivative work is commercial, how much of the copyrighted material is used, how "transformative" the use is, and what effect the use of the copyrighted material has on the market for the original work).

If in doubt, it would be safest to avoid using specific details of a setting that can be identified as originating in a single copyrighted work

It seems to me that the absolute safest course of action would be to avoid using specific characters, settings, or items that were created in works that are currently under copyright. Some aspects of settings or characters are unoriginal enough that they are clearly not at risk of being identified as derivative of one specific work: for example, unicorns, prophecies, schools of magic, wise mentors, scars, magic swords. But if it's obvious that a particular detail of your work is based on one single copyrighted work, I think you're taking a bit more risk.

I want to emphasize that by saying "a bit more risk" I don't mean there is necessarily any substantial risk. If no legal action is ever taken by the copyright holder, it won't matter. If legal action is taken, you can argue either that your work is not derivative, or that it is covered by the fair use defense.

You could seek out professional legal advice to get a sense of whether using this aspect of Riordan's work would be likely to be judged derivative, and if so, how likely it is that your work would be covered by the fair use defense.

For completeness, I feel like I should mention an alternative way to avoid the risk of copyright infringement: to get permission from the copyright holder. I don't think that is a possible course of action in this case, as Riordan makes the following statement on his website:

I love the series so much I'd like to continue writing the books myself. Can I have permission to use your characters and ideas?

I'm honored you like the series so much, and I get this question frequently, but my publisher would be pretty upset if I gave anyone else permission to write about Percy's world. If you’re writing stories just for your own amusement and not planning to publish or share them, that’s no big deal. But if you are hoping to write a book that would be published some day, you need to come up with your own characters, settings, and stories. Of course, Greek mythology itself is thousands of years old. Anyone can write about the gods and monsters. Perhaps you can come up with your own original spin on that material.

Answer 5

I am not a lawyer, but perhaps you could have one of your characters acknowledge Riordan. Maybe one of the gods read his book, and says "actually that isn't a bad idea" (But why the Empire State Building? What about the replacement for the Twin Towers?). Dan Brown does something similar in The Da Vinci Code, which borrows ideas from Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh's book, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. Da Vinci Code explicitly mentions the other book, and implies that it was a leaned treatise that added credibility to the central idea of the Da Vinci Code. Baigent and Leigh unsuccessfully sued Brown for theft of intellectual property.

BTW, the idea of the gods hanging out in New York goes back at least to 1931: The Night Life of the Gods